Tuesday, 29 July 2014

Location, Location Location. What does a sense of place mean to a writer?

It has been sweltering hot in Dundee for the past couple of weeks. Although I have been writing I also wanted to get out and about in the sun. I justify this with the premise that all work, and no play, makes Wendy a very dull author indeed. With the sun at my back it was time to explore the location of my books.

DI Shona McKenzie, the star of my murder mystery books, lives in Broughty Ferry, so it is here I chose to spend the day. Broughty Ferry has a beautiful beach as can be seen above. However, despite enjoying the day, my mind turns to crime. How could this beautiful location be incorporated into a book, with a deed so vile, no one could possibly imagine it. Except an author of course. The photo will serve as a reminder when I am writing about location in my books.

What else did I find in Broughty Ferry?

There is a rather fine castle, which was first fortified as a castle in 1454. Given the history of Scotland I am sure that many a murder has taken place within its walls over the centuries. With the blue of the harbour it looks idyllic today, but is it?

Broughty Ferry, like many parts of Dundee, is a mixture of the old and the new. I love this picture with the new cuddling up to the new, and yet somehow working.

Broughty Ferry sits on the estuary of the river Tay, with the Kingdom of Fife on the other side of the river. They are joined by the Tay Bridge, which can't be seen in this picture. However, despite being separated by the river, Dundee, and Tayport in Fife, are close enough to be joint partners in any mayhem contained within a book.

As writers, we have to set the scene for our readers, giving them a sense of place. Going out and taking photographs such as this can help us with providing vivid word pictures which can be translated visually by our readers. However, one caveat. This should ideally be done in different weather conditions. The sun always seems to be shining in my pictures, but not in my novels. Not that I want the rain, or the wind, or the storm to arrive but when it does, I will be dressing up warmly and taking the bull by the horns. My loyal readers are worth every freezing cold minute.

I would like to finish with a question. To all authors. What is your top tip for ensuring a sense of place in your novels?

10 comments:

When writing locations I think it depends on the genre you are doing. In my Guardians of the Gate City series I set the tales right in my home town. By knowing the place as well as I did I could populate the urban fantasy tale with creatures that fit into their surroundings and by knowing the history of the place you can give depth to your scenes. When doing a totally new and not existing place you have to come up with these histories and that is when research and a vivid imagination are a necessity.

That is very true Lisa. Although I come from Dundee, and know it well, I wanted to make sure I and it absolutely spot on and ingrained in my mind. Hence the reason for the day in Broughty Ferry. That and the sunshine of course :-)

I try to insert references to the everyday aspects of my characters' lives, such as what they eat, grow, how they move from place to place, how the poor live as compared to the wealthy. These details bring a sense of immediacy and reality to the fantasy world I am building.

Like many of us I write fiction. that means the places don't really need to exist in reality. Nonetheless I do visualise them, and in my last novel I have actually included appropriate photographs to represent places in my book. My main character, Tom Kendall, is a private detective, originally from New York, but now in Miami. I have been to New York and Miami and have used some places from both cities in my books.

John. That is true, we can visualise places which are not real. Val McDermid uses this very successfully in her crime novels. My books are set in the City in which I live so it is easy for me to go and see the places themselves. I can even take my laptop and write there.

A great post, Wendy. In my novel, that's coming out in October, my protagonist travels from Provence, to the Florida Keys, to New York and then to Ireland. Thankfully, I've been to all these places, and perhaps she wouldn't have gone if I hadn't gone there myself. However, she does end up in the town of Killybegs, a place that I've never visited. I had to research like mad to get a flavour of the place. I pinned a photo of the town on my bulletin board above my computer. One of the joys of writing is travelling with our characters to all these places.

Diana, that sounds great. Research is important. I love the idea of pinning pictures above your computer. I'd have to do this on a cupboard as there is one just above, or I have a bulletin board right next to me. Thanks for the tip

To me, place is more than just the city in which the story takes place. It’s really where the character is physically, and what’s going on there.

My novel “A Beast in Venice” is set (of course) in Venice, and it’s important to provide details of that as the character walks around the city. In the case of a specific, real location, the details have to be perfect. If they’re not, you’re going to get called on it, and that’s all the reason most people would need to give it a bad review.

But the characters are also in locations within the city, some of which are fictional. You’ve got to give a feeling for that particular place. I see a lot of new writers just say that the character walks into a room without giving any description or feeling for it. I’m not looking for an info dump (also the hallmark of a beginner), but I want something so that I get a meaningful sense of surroundings.

In a novel I’ve just finished, the story takes place largely in an unnamed city. In that case, you don’t have to worry about being accurate with the details. But you still need to provide enough description to give a feeling for the location.

So, in the course of a scene, you’ve got to provide sensory information that allows the reader to feel as thought they are there.